Metropolis

London, United Kingdom

1988 – TBC

Institute of Contemporary Art, London

Complete

The painting was commissioned for an exhibition at the ICA that explored different aspects of the metropolis. It depictsLondonas a patchwork of villages, which have evolved and expanded over centuries. But instead of being evenly distributed, these different metropolitan centres now compete to establish new focal points. Its most striking quality is the predominance of red, which screams exasperation with the sprawling mess of the city; its red flares represent the fires ofLondon, where new settlements and new centres need to be invented to replace the city’s exhausted and overworked heart.